Nick Carter has thousands of fans who adore him, but that doesn't mean a Backstreet Boy can't have insecurities. The youngest member of the world's No. 1 selling boy band, now 31, released his first solo album, "Now or Never," in 2002, but took until this year to release the follow-up, "I'm Taking Off."

It is a contemporary beat-driven pop album featuring the club joint "Burning Up," smoother ballad "So Far Away" and a special Canada-only contribution, the synth-laden dance-pop single, "Love Can't Wait," co-written with Canadians Shawn Desman and Tebey (Desman also produced it). In Japan, where the album came out in February, the single was the more wistful "Just One Kiss."

"I had my hands in everything," says Carter from choosing the photographer to do the album art to shooting the video for "Just One Kiss" himself and selecting the video treatment for "Love Can't Wait."

"I think that was important. Not only is it more personal, but when you're passionate about something and you want to see it succeed, it's more real. When it came down to the music too, [everything] I had written on comes from a place that is real. That's one thing our fans deserve is to hear music that is real."

To get to that real place, for Carter, took a long time. He had started recording a few songs for a second album around 2003. The first sold a decent half-million copies worldwide, but when his bread and butter called, he stopped working on his solo stuff and those songs were long forgotten. Backstreet Boys put out another three albums after that, 2005's "Never Gone," 2007's "Unbreakable" and 2009's "This Is Us," bringing their total album sales to more than 130 million copies.

"I waited about eight years or so to write another record or release it," says Carter, chilling on the bed in a suite at the Park Hyatt in Toronto. "I think the reason why I took that time in between, I guess you could say it was a lack of confidence in myself. And, also, maybe it was something deep down inside telling me I wasn't ready."

Even though "Now or Never" allowed Carter to participate in the writing of five songs on the album, he says, "There still was a lot that was unsettled from the writing standpoint. I didn't really know how to write music. I was experimenting with it with the first album.

"I was not in the greatest shape physically or mentally, having said that," he adds.

Carter has struggled with drug and alcohol problems (he was arrested on a DUI in 2005) as well as a significant weight gain, but took control of his life after discovering he had a heart muscle disease called cardiomyopathy. Today, he is trim and healthy.

"There were so many more things behind the scenes that were needed," Carter continues, explaining more of the wrenches in his solo wheel. "I'm such a control freak in a sense, where I want to know what's happening and I felt like it was out of control basically. I felt like people were making decisions on my behalf and I wasn't involved. And I didn't like it."

Carter is in an odd position because he's part of a group -- with A.J. McLean, Howie Dorough and Brian Littrell -- presenting a united ensemble to the world, and yet as a solo artist must break away and present a clear picture of who he is as an individual.

"The one thing is the Backstreet Boys have started to become..." he pauses, laughs slightly as he searches for the right words, "...I don't want to say this in an egotistical way, but I think a little more vintage than before. Classic, now. And so when I do step aside and I do things, I'm coming from a place now of experience. That's all I have and I can apply that to everything that I do from the photo shoots to the music videos."

When he was finally ready to make his second solo album, Carter chose to work with multiple producers: Muckala (Backstreet Boys), Toby Gad (Beyoncé), Brent Kutzle (OneRepublic), Noel Zancanella (Rashaan Ahmad), Carl Falk (Gavin DeGraw), Rami Yacoub (Celine Dion), Matthew Gerrard (Jesse McCartney), MIDI Mafia (50 Cent), and Desman and Tebey.

He also co-wrote every song. One of the late additions is the collaboration with Desman, "Love Can't Wait." The two met when Desman opened for Backstreet Boys on the Canadian leg of their "This Is Us" Tour in 2010.

"I loved his song 'Shiver,'" says Carter. "I kept hearing it every night before we would go onstage and I was like, 'This guy's a good writer' [Desman co-wrote it with four other people]. So I met him at an after-show party that me and Howie did and we hit it off and I was like, 'We should write together.' I'm sure he didn't think it would happen with [our] schedules. I called him up on my time off and I'm like, 'Let's write; I'm writing for my solo record.' We did the first writing process in Nashville. He came to my house and we hung out."

Although Carter has gone through some intense life changes and is also an outspoken advocate of environmental causes, he didn't consider writing lyrics about these things and coming out left-field with a singer-songwriter type album (he has become "very well accustomed to [playing] the guitar"). But you never know what he might do in the coming years.

"The great thing about what I have done right now is I put a great body of work out there and I'm happy with that," Cartner says. "Actually, I can say that I'm proud of this album in so many ways from top to bottom that if I wasn't a fan of me [he hesitates, trying to phrase this properly] How do I approach this? If I wasn't a fan and I heard this album, I think I'd be like, 'That's a good album.' What I think this is going to do is set up future things that I'm going to do as far as music goes. "

Carter says he wants to come up to Canada in November to do a solo mini tour behind "I'm Taking Off." As for the status of Backstreet Boys, which has just come off a hugely successful joint tour with New Kids On The Block (billed as NKOTBSB), he says they will start recording a new album in September/October.

"As far as top line and lyrics go, I think we're gonna definitely contribute a lot more with this album," he says. "I think that we don't credit ourselves enough. With the experience that we have now, we're able to be involved substantially much more than we were, as far as writers go. It has been a growing thing. We have used some of the biggest writers and producers in the world and we're still gonna use those guys."

Source: Karen Bliss | entertainment.ca